St. Louis Prosecutor George Peach Charged 20 Years Ago Today

A year and a half after I moved to St. Louis a huge scandal broke — 20 years ago today:

The chief state prosecutor for the city of St. Louis, who has spent most of his 15 years in office crusading against obscenity, pornography and prostitution, was charged today with a misdemeanor offense of patronizing a prostitute.

[snip]

Since being elected as circuit attorney in 1976, Mr. Peach has led a fight to rid St. Louis of pornography and prostitution. In the 1980’s he was responsible for closing the city’s major pornographic book and video stores. Last June, he endorsed changes in city ordinances that would make jail mandatory for prostitutes, pimps and customers who are second-time offenders. (New York Times)

Peach was busted three days earlier, on Tuesday March 10, 1992, in a hotel in St. Louis County. In the days immediately following his arrest on the misdemeanor charge local officials were debating if he should resign or run for a 5th term as prosecutor.

A January 2004 story in the Post-Dispatch recounts many the sorted details including more criminal activity:

In an eight-month Post-Dispatch investigation in 1992, reporters disclosed that Peach financed his extracurricular activities with cash from a confidential city checking account he controlled. He also took money from a fund set up to aid crime victims. (Full story — highly recommended)

A number of years ago an independent hollywood company began raising money to produce a film about Peach’s downfall, myself and many others donated money to help get the film made:

Heart of the Beholder is a 2005 drama film that was written and directed by Ken Tipton. It is based on Tipton’s own experience as the owner of a chain of videocassette rental stores in the 1980s. Tipton and his family had opened the first videocassette rental stores in St. Louis in 1980. Their business was largely destroyed by a campaign of the National Federation for Decency, who objected to the chain’s carrying the film The Last Temptation of Christ for rental.

The film won “Best Feature Film” awards at several film festivals. Critic Ryan Cracknell summarized the film, “There’s no shortage of material for writer-director Ken Tipton to work with here. That alone makes Heart of the Beholder a film of interest. It is in many ways a politically charged film as it touches on issues of freedom of speech, religious beliefs and all out fanaticism. Still, I didn’t think it was charged with enough balance and I think a large part had to do with the film’s inconsistent pacing.” (Wikipedia)

As one of thousands of uncredited producers I got the film on DVD, but here’s the trailer:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onnQwK8DhA4

You can order the DVD here or you can watch the entire film online, view chapter 1, do not watch at work! The film is also available for instant streaming on Netflix.

I recall a video store on the south side of Olive between Compton & Grand, now part of Saint Louis University’s campus, that closed in the early 90s. I only visited the store once, not sure if it was one of Ken Tipton’s Video Library stores or not.

– Steve Patterson

2617 Olive Older Than It Looks

The other day I noticed a nondescript little building I’d driven past hundreds of times but never payed attention to before. This day I was a pedestrian and it caught my eye.

The one story building at 2617 Olive is easy to overlook, halfway between Sam Light Loans and AT&T, it just disappears. From across Olive the storefront caught my eye.

Cast iron? At home I looked it up on city records and it says it was built in 1883! A 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance map shows the building as being 3-stories in height and having a stone front, one of a group of eight such storefronts.

The point? None other than I found it interesting.

– Steve Patterson

Biondi Threatened To Move Saint Louis University Medical To St. Louis County

The presentations were completed and the Planning Commission had asked questions of Saint Louis University representatives about their appeal. Don Roe, Director of the St. Louis Urban Design & Planning Agency was discussing procedures with the members of the Planning Commission and Saint Louis University President Biondi got up and spoke for an additional two minutes — saying if the demolition of the Pevely office building isn’t granted he’ll move the medical center to St. Louis County.

Biondi shouldn’t have been allowed to speak at that point — anyone else in the room would have been silenced immediately. But what he said was a very clear threat –don’t overturn the Preservation Board’s decision and we’ll abandon the city like every other catholic hospital in town has done before us!

Sorry for the poor audio:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub8u2khAo3c

“What I forsee, if you don’t approve our request, is that we would have to shut down our medical school and find property in west county,” noting that 35 years ago, Maryville offered up land for the university to move west. Earlier, Biondi cited the school’s record of renovating and restoring historic buildings and also highlighted the law school’s impending move to downtown. (KMOX)

The Planning Commission voted to reverse the the Preservation Board and allow demolition of the corner office building with the condition a permit has been issued for construction of the new project.  They reversed the Preservation Board and allowed demolition of the historic smokestack without any conditions. They modified the Preservation Board decision on the milk plant and garage to allow demolition to proceed at once on those.

– Steve Patterson

Planning Commission To Hear Appeal On Denial Of Permit To Raze Historic Pevely Dairy (Update w/Agenda)

I have a note on my calendar that the St. Louis Planning Commission will hear an appeal of the Preservation Board’s decision in December 2011 to uphold the staff denial of Saint Louis University’s demolition requet for the historic Pevely Dairy at Grand & Chouteau tomorrow. Yesterday I tried to confirm this but was unable to do so online.

All I got was two links to an agenda from March 2011 — neither of which worked. Frustrating! The main page gave me some general information on the Planning Commission:

The thirteen-member Planning Commission adopts and amends the comprehensive Strategic Land Use Plan and General Land Use Plan for the City of St. Louis.

The Commission adopts zoning ordinances and makes decisions on some variance and all rezoning petitions, thereby guiding the development and redevelopment of the City. It also renews blighting studies and redevelopment plans and provides recommendations to the Board of Aldermen.

The Planning Commission consists of thirteen members. The following city officials are members: The President of the Board of Public Service and the Chairs of the Transportation and Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committees of the Board of Aldermen. The Mayor, Comptroller and President of the Board of Aldermen each designate one member. The Mayor appoints the seven remaining members (“citizen members”).

The directors of the Departments of Parks, Recreation and Forestry, Public Safety, Public Utilities and Streets serve as advisors to the Commission.

I emailed a couple of people and confirmed the Planning Commission will indeed hear an appeal to raze the Pevely Dairy at their meeting tomorrow:

The Planning Commission meets the first Wednesday of every month at 5:30 P.M. Meetings are held at the Planning & Urban Design Agency office located at 1015 Locust Street, Suite 1200 and are open to the public unless otherwise posted.

Hopefully the room will be packed with people supportive of the Preservation Board’s decision.

I’ll be at the meeting, will you? Update: view the agenda here.

– Steve Patterson

Former City Hospital Power Plant to Include Rock Climbing Gym, Banquet Hall, Rooftop Dining

An interesting new concept will open for business next month:

Is St. Louis ready for one of the tallest bouldering walls in the nation? Or a banquet facility where attendees can watch rock climbers scale a 55-foot wall? Or a corporate party that includes rock climbing? Ready or not, Climb So iLL will be opening in the historic City Hospital Power Plant in mid-March. (St. Louis Business Journal)

You’ll be able to grab lunch at a restaurant while viewing the climbing space.

This is a creative  use of a difficult building:

Listed on the city’s historical registry, the Power Plant supplied power to the St. Louis City Hospital for nearly 50 years. The City Hospital complex is made up of several buildings including the Laundry Building, the Administrative Complex, the City Hospital itself, and the Power Plant.

 The once abandoned City Hospital has been renovated into the Georgian Condominiums, and the Laundry Building is now home to the Palladium Banquet Center. Several other construction projects are underway on the site. Phase two of construction hopes to bring with it a bakery, a micro-brewery, a locally-grown food processing distribution center, and a hotel. (climbsoill.com)

It has been nice seeing the City Hospital site develop over time. The streets and sidewalks have been in place and one by one the development is filling in between.

This is an example of what I was talking about the other day regarding The Bottle District — the planning was done and the infrastructure (streets & sidewalks) to connect development parcels within the site and to the adjacent neighborhoods. As demand and financing becomes available vacant buildings are renovated and occupied and new construction is built to fill in other areas.

We need more of this — plan the site, put the infrastructure in place and build/renovate over time. The developer of the site isn’t responsible for financing all the future renovations and new construction at the beginning. For more info and artist renderings of the rock climbing gym see climbsoill.com.

– Steve Patterson